May 22, 2018 Damascus Is Secured, Daraa Is NextTue May 22, 2018 22:02 | Scotthttps://southfront.org/syrian-war-rep... Late on May 21, Russian air defense systems, allegedly a Pantsir-S short to medium range system, launched at least four missiles at ?unidentified? targets over the Khmeimim air base

Resolution 17001/2006 has been passed by the UN tonite, calling for a full cessation of hostilities. UNIFIL is to be expanded to 15000 with the lebanese government sending troops to the south of the country. Effective and immediate control of the lebanese government within it own territory and calls for the immediate withdrawl of Israeli forces. Much was spoken about creating stability across the region. The lebanese government will meet tomorrow to discuss the resolution, with the israeli's meeting in sunday. tonite as the resolution was passed the israeli troops are pushing further into lebanon

Amidst all the speeches, talking about creating peace, about helping the lebanese population one thing has stuck out more than anything else. Almost 1 million people have been displaced within Lebanon and over 1000 killed. Its really difficult not to be cynical particularly when we think of the reality of what a ceasefire will mean for the population of Lebanon, but even i was shocked to here within all the politico speak that the US and the UK where the only speakers to start putting figures on this.

Where every speaker on the council spoke with their obvious perspective and bias it was hard not too notice that the only representatives to mention money was the US and UK speakers. The US is to up its assistance to $50M, which by my reckoning is about the cost of less than 6 airplanes that Israel’s purchased from the US. The UK is to give £6.2M, through the Red Cross, so one wonders how much off this money has been allocated previously

Condoleeza Rice, whilst speaking about the grief her country felt about the devastation and death visited upon by Israel’s military might spoke of “creating opportunity out of tradgedy”. Her next few shocked even me as I’d thought id heard it all. But said it she did. Even within the arena of ceremony and pomp, it took all of 2 and a half minutes too find out where the US government felt the ‘oppurtunity’ lay. The US government is to “push for the involvement of the private sector in the reconstruction of Lebanon”. Not content, it seems with selling the bombs and military hard and soft ware that killed and injured so many Lebanese and reduced the countries infrastructure to rubble, they now want to get quids in by rebuilding it…..and why the any right minded person think that we shouldn’t just start pulling these companies apart.

Unfortunately Sky went to break as the Lebanese Representative spoke.....hope to add more soon

As if this wasn’t enough to absorb in one evening, I was really sickened to hear the UK speaker at the UK Margaret Beckett, who with no hint of sarcasm or irony, said that the UK government will immediately “address the humanitarian crisis” by deploying a “British team experience in post conflict reconstruction” Bet they will be wanting paid well too.

Everyones a winner if your involved in the (Post)War industry eh?

Butter wouldnt melt, But where theres blood theres money

The shiny face of muder,,,not likely to be visiting Prestwick airport anyday soon!!

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Comments (8 of 8)

Israel's war strategy in Lebanon has been, from the very start, both clear-cut and horribly familiar: take Lebanon and its people hostage; then start killing off the hostages, one by one, dozen by dozen, hundred by hundred; drive hundreds of thousands out of their homes, starve them of food, water and electricity; wreak enough death and destruction so that the Lebanese themselves will rush to throw out Hizbullah or deliver it to Israel's or America's eager, blood-drenched hands.
It didn't work.
Certainly, from the perspective of Washington and Jerusalem, the odds seemed excellent that such a military strategy should work, well, like clockwork. Domestically, regionally and internationally, Hizbullah's head seemed "ripe for the picking" ­ to use the famous words of Al-Hajaj, the ruthless 7th century wali, or governor, of Iraq.
A year before, a great section of the Lebanese people had risen up in rebellion against Syria's political and military sway over their country, and the nasty tricks of its intelligence services, including ­ most Lebanese were convinced -- the assassination of former prime minister Rafik El-Hariri. Christians, Sunnis and Druze were joined in the anti-Syrian rebellion; only Hizbuallah and its Shiite constituency came out in defiance of the new Lebanese consensus, and in defense of their Syrian allies.
Moreover, Hizbullah's arms and military posture -- stockpiled and evolved over many years of resistance to the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon and since -- gave it a disproportionate influence over Lebanon's fragile post-civil war political arrangements, none of which particularly enamored it to the other political and sectional interests in the country.
On the international and regional levels, Hizbullah also seemed easy pickings. Washington had found a willing, if uncommon ally in Paris, the erstwhile "old Europe's" supreme representative. The now famous Security Council Resolution 1559 (Sept. 2004) raised the heat on both Syria and Hizbullah, calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops and the disbanding and disarming of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias. The Bush administration may be blasé about international legitimacy but is by no means averse to getting it when it can.
Regionally, the situation couldn't have been more propitious.
The Arab regimes have been running scared for some years now. The neo-cons that George W. Bush brought with him to the White House six years ago had shown very little concern, even contempt, for the political stability of America's "friends" in the Arab world. The "democracy" stick they'd been waving over their heads with increasing vigour since 9/11 had these regimes leaning over backwards to oblige -- to trade-off anything at all, on every issue of concern to US policy regionally, or indeed, anywhere else in the world, so long as Washington lightens up on their "gradual" approach to window-dressing their ugly, vicious dictatorships with the flimsiest of liberal facades.
They also had reasons of their own for wishing Hizbullah to simply go away. With the US having brought the Shiites to power ­ or at least what passes for political power ­ in Iraq; with Teheran holding so many high cards in its hands, it could afford to arrogantly defy the US and as well as the US-driven "international community" over its nuclear capability; and with Hizbullah exercising, as well as legitimizing, its political and military influence within Lebanon, in the meantime providing Teheran with one of its more important high cards ­ the Arab regimes had been muttering darkly about the growing threat of a "Shiite arc" in their midst.
It was time, then, to open another front in the 'war against terror', to strike another blow for a "new Middle East". And possibly for the first time in its history, Israel seemed to go to war more on behalf of the US than in concert with it. It was in recognition of this salient feature of the current Israeli war on Lebanon that a few weeks into the war, Israeli peace demonstrators would march in Tel Aviv hoisting banners uniquely slamming US imperialism and their government's clientism to Washington. "It could have been in Cairo or Amman," commented a friend, who avidly followed the extensive coverage of the Tel Aviv demonstration by Al-Jazeera, struck as he was by the similarity of the Israeli peace activists' slogans to those being chanted in Cairo and Amman.
And from day one, the military strategy was as glaringly obvious, as it was sinister. Strike at Beirut, destroy bridges, water and electricity facilities, and homes, as many homes as possible; and kill, kill as many civilians, as many women and children as you possibly can; pound Lebanon into the dust and just keep pounding until the fault lines between Hizbullah and the rest of Lebanese society fracture on their own.
So confident were the Americans and Israelis of the success of this strategy, they initially gave it a week to work. The blame, after all, would not be laid at the door of those doing the killing and destruction but at Hizbullah's. It was Hizbullah that was to be held responsible for the carnage ­ every Lebanese civilian killed, each and every home destroyed, would merely add yet another count to the bill of indictment against the Lebanese group.
Never mind that Israel could kidnap Lebanese citizens from their homes and hold them in indefinite detention; it was Hizbullah's adventurous kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers that was to blame for Israel's "justified" response. It was Hizbullah's ties to Iran and Syria; its "state within a state", its various hidden agendas ­ these were the culprits that were to be held to account for the death and destruction in Lebanon. Just as their American friends had been doing in Iraq, the Israelis were slaughtering the Lebanese people in order to liberate them.
America's Arab friends rushed to provide further cover ­ a chorus of crows perched over Lebanese corpses, squawking, over and over: "blame Hizbullah".
Everything seemed to indicate that it would work. It did not.
Week one passed into week two, into week three, Lebanon did not fracture, the hostages, instead of turning on Hizbullah and delivering it to the hands of its enemies, as they were supposed to, were more united possibly than ever before in defense of their homeland. Seventeen days after the start of the Israeli attack on Lebanon, Israel was withdrawing its elite Golani Brigade from the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, which they had claimed to have taken a week earlier.
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nassrallah was declaring victory.
And for a moment, possibly for a single day, it appeared that Israel was now faced with the prospect of cutting its losses and bringing an end to what now seemed to have been a tremendous fiasco. Everybody was changing their tune. The Israelis, who initially had spoken of crushing Hizbullah, were now talking of keeping Hizbullah's rockets out of range of northern Israeli towns. US State Secretary, Condoleezza Rice, who had been, literally, sticking her tongue out at world public opinion, as Washington continued to veto a ceasefire call, a mere week before, was heading back to the region and speaking of the "great sacrifices" both sides had to make. The Europeans, who had been happy to look the other way, mumbling about "disproportionate" response, were now in a more audacious frame of mind, willing to actually come out in condemnation of Israel's brutality and slaughter of civilians, a little more firm in their demand for an immediate ceasefire.
And the "Arab friends" were in a fix ­ yet again. Faced with the intensifying rage of their peoples, they were now scrambling over each other in their rush to find suitably heated and flowery rhetoric with which to express their condemnation of Israel. Diplomatic initiatives were being initiated, money and aid pledged (though if the Palestinian experience is anything to go by, Arab aid is much more forthcoming in the pledging than in the delivery), all of which was in sharp contrast to their posture during the previous weeks.
But it could not be. If anything, Hizbullah had been too successful. This, after all, was a war for a "New Middle East" ­ with typical neo-con contempt for human life, Ms. Rice went so far as to describe the death and destruction in Lebanon as the "birth pangs" of this new Middle East. And as the Hamas win in the Palestinian territories had so clearly revealed, the New Middle East was never about free elections; it was always about submission. A new Middle East is one in which Arabs, both governments and publics, are convinced of the foolishness and futility of resistance. To bow to American-Israeli dictates is the real content of "accepting modernity" ­ which, according to hosts of Likudnik American talking heads, the Arab and Muslim "mind" has been rejecting consistently, to its detriment.
And yet here we were, on the contrary, faced with yet another Hizbullah victory. However accurately, Hizbullah is credited by Arab public opinion of having been the only Arab political entity to have compelled Israel (in 2000) to withdraw from occupied Arab land by force of arms, and unconditionally.
One of the aims of the war, indeed, was to "disabuse" the Arabs of just such an "illusion"; definitely, not to reaffirm it. All the objectives of the war were in a shambles. By crushing Hizbullah, or at least cutting it severely down to size, the war was supposed to deny both Syria and Iran one of their more important bargaining cards; it was supposed to frighten the Syrian regime (and long experience has shown that the Syrian regime is very easily frightened) into "de-linking" with Iran; and, finally, to put the squeeze even harder on the now relatively isolated and besieged Tehran.
Simply, it was a war that neither the US nor Israel could afford to lose. The solution? Simple, wreak more death and destruction. With Washington spending over 400 billion dollars on arms annually, there is an endless supply of bombs, ammunition and missiles; enough, most likely, to flatten every city in the whole world to the ground, let alone tiny Lebanon.
On 29 July Israeli forces withdrew form Bint Jbeil; on 30 July they perpetrated another massacre in the southern Lebanese village of Qana, the village where according to New Testament tradition, Jesus transformed water into wine. Ten years before, Israeli troops had directed a barrage of artillery fire at a UN shelter in the village, killing over 100 civilians, most of them women and children. This time around, they killed over 50 civilians, again mostly women and children.
More "birth pangs" for Ms. Rice's New Middle East, and more, and even more ­ the death and destruction goes on.
How it will all end is difficult to predict at this time. We can be sure, however, that the cause of democracy, secularism and modernity in the Arab world will suffer further setbacks. So determined are the US, Israel and, indeed, the Europeans on making democracy and modernity in the Arab and Muslim worlds synonymous with submission, humiliation and continuing oppression, that Arabs and Muslims have been falling back on the mythical anti-modern identities that the West insists on ascribing to them. For those of us who are committed to the belief that genuine democracy, secularism and rationalism are, in fact, the very conditions for emancipation of the Arab peoples from oppression, both domestic and foreign, the struggle will be that much harder.

We may also be sure, however, that the lesson in submission will not be learned. In whatever shape or form, Arabs will continue to resist. It so happens that Hizbullah is the most modern, the most rationalist Islamist movement in the Arab world. Israel and the US may ultimately destroy Hizbullah; they will get Al-Qaeda instead ­ and not just in Lebanon.

The vote was passed with support of the opposition rightwing PP and the leftwing pacifist IU (4th international)

So are Irish troops to go too?
100,000 people have no homes to return to. no electricty or running water to serve the tents where they will live in the meantime. No cafes to hang out or even a shopping mall where the kids can go.
Women throughout Lebanon now find themselves caring for who? what?

Lebanon needs to be rebuilt before Winter. Perhaps Ireland could send some defence force engineers??

= this is now what the true anti-War activists' ought consider their special little mission

According to Seymour Hersch, Pulitzer Prize winner and columnist of the ‘The New Yorker’ magazine, in his article ‘Watching Lebanon’ posted online this morning, [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060821fa..._fact] the Bush Administration, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns but also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.
In his article Hersch quotes a ‘Middle East expert with knowledge of the current thinking of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments’, saying that Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah—and shared it with Bush Administration officials—well before the July 12th kidnappings. “It’s not that the Israelis had a trap that Hezbollah walked into,” he said, “but there was a strong feeling in the White House. Hersch continues : “ Bush wanted both. Bush was going after Iran, as part of the Axis of Evil, and its nuclear sites, and he was interested in going after Hezbollah as part of his interest in democratization, with Lebanon as one of the crown jewels of Middle East democracy.”
Hersch quotes Richard Armitage, who served as Deputy Secretary of State in Bush’s first term—and who, in 2002, said that Hezbollah “may be the A team of terrorists”—Israel’s campaign in Lebanon, which has faced unexpected difficulties and widespread criticism, may, in the end, serve as a warning to the White House about Iran. “If the most dominant military force in the region—the Israel Defense Forces—can’t pacify a country like Lebanon, with a population of four million, you should think carefully about taking that template to Iran, with strategic depth and a population of seventy million,” Armitage said. “The only thing that the bombing has achieved so far is to unite the population against the Israelis.”
Perhaps in the most chilling part of his article, Hersch quotes a ‘former senior intelligence official’, who says that the Israeli Plan “ was the mirror image of what the United States has been planning for Iran.” (The initial U.S. Air Force proposals for an air attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity, which included the option of intense bombing of civilian infrastructure targets inside Iran, have been resisted by the top leadership of the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, according to current and former officials. They argue that the Air Force plan will not work and will inevitably lead, as in the Israeli war with Hezbollah, to the insertion of troops on the ground.)
Hersch concludes that the long-term Administration goal was to help set up a Sunni Arab coalition—including countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt—that would join the United States and Europe to pressure the ruling Shiite mullahs in Iran. “But the thought behind that plan was that Israel would defeat Hezbollah, not lose to it”. Even those who continue to support Israel’s war against Hezbollah, Hersch concludes, agree that it is failing to achieve one of its main goals—to rally the Lebanese against Hezbollah. “Strategic bombing has been a failed military concept for ninety years, and yet air forces all over the world keep on doing it,” Heersch writes quoting John Arquilla, a defense analyst at the Naval Postgraduate School. Arquilla has been campaigning for more than a decade, with growing success, to change the way America fights terrorism. “The warfare of today is not mass on mass,” he said. “You have to hunt like a network to defeat a network. Israel focussed on bombing against Hezbollah, and, when that did not work, it became more aggressive on the ground. The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result.”

The UN Security Council, following a long and protracted process of negotiations, has finally come up with a Peace Plan, discussing and approving the US/French proposal. The decision will be forthwith known as Resolution 1701/2006 and, Koffi Annan, the UN General Secretary, will now have 30 days to ‘solve’ all the outstanding issues and trigger a second resolution likely to guarantee peace and stability in the region.

As these lines are being written, we hear that following the Lebanese Government’s acceptance of the Plan [it called it “an honest compromise”], the Israeli Cabinet, following a stormy debate earlier today Sunday, has also registered its approval and agreed to silence its Army’s guns in “less than 24 hours”.

The Plan does not, as yet, argue for an ‘immediate ceasefire’ (it speaks instead of a ‘a full cessation of hostilities’) and it does not include a full timetable for the withdrawal of the Israeli Army (IDF) from the Lebanese territory. Speaking just before the final vote in the Council, the General Secretary clarified that it would be him who will “determine the day and the hour for the cessation of hostilities…after both the Lebanese and the Israeli Governments made their acceptance public…”

In the meantime, Hezbollah fired more than 250 rockets into Israel today, the biggest barrage against northern Israel since the fighting began more than a month ago. The rockets killed one Israeli during the day. At the same time, the Israeli military embarked on a last-minute push to devastate Hezbollah positions, rocketing south Beirut with missiles.

The six-page Resolution 1701 incorporates the following elements:
· Complete cessation of hostilities
· Gradual establishment of Lebanese forces (together with a French and a multinational force) in the region with a simultaneous gradual withdrawal of the IDF.
· An embargo on the provision of arms to Hezbollah and a withdrawal of its forces to a distance of 20 km from the border.
· The liberation of the 2 captured Israeli soldiers and “an encouragement for Israel to free its Lebanese prisoners”.

Clarifying certain provisions of the Plan, the British Ambassador to the UN, E. Jones, said that Resolution 1701 will provide the UN forces with a “fortified instruction” to co-ordinate the withdrawal of the IDF from Lebanon. 15,000 blue helmeted UN soldiers, under the provisions of Chapter 6 of the UN Charter [which clarifies the need for the peaceful resolution of conflicts] will take positions and deploy in what has alternatively been called ‘buffer’ or ‘dead’ zone. We understand Israel objected to the use of Chapter 6 and instead argued for the provisions of Chapter 7 which refers to the use of violence. It appears a phone call between the White House and Olmert sorted out that particular issue.

The US / EU Conundrum

One of the most significant aspects of the whole process described above, has been the crucial differences that have developed between the White House and the EU concerning the management of this so-called ‘Second Lebanese war’ – the first being that of 1982. These differences, despite the overall agreement between the White House and Brussels re:the general approach towards the Middle East, centred on:
· The specific approach towards what has been referred to as ‘Islamic Extremism’ [Bush went as far as to talk of Islamic fascism], and
· The export of a western type ‘democracy’ to the region.

I suggest it was the horrific extent of the Israeli warmongering, coupled with the full and unconditional US support in missiles, armaments and diplomacy that created new conditions in the sensitive balance between the US and the EU. The small differences in detail and emphasis that may have existed had suddenly become primary and crucial.

The White House recipe for a “new Middle East”, enunciated by Rice in the middle of a huge bombardment of south Lebanon and Beirut, had elements in it which were very difficult to digest for the European palate. It forced the French and the Germans to look again at their Middle East strategy. It was at that point that the British were simply marginalized out of the game and the French President entered the fray – one major element of disagreement in France, Germany and Italy has been the characterisation not only of Hamas and Hezbollah, but also of Syria and Iran as “terrorist” !!

Despite Washington’s almost frantic ranting, the EU continued, and indeed expanded, its diplomatic contacts with Damascus and Teheran. The French and the Germans simply refused to accept that the 2nd Lebanese War was part and parcel of the global ‘war against terror’.

It would appear that the entry of the Arab League into the game having fortified the French/EU position, has now afforded European diplomacy (excluding the British) an upper hand in the management of the Middle East crisis.

It maybe perhaps not very far fetched to suggest at this time that the whole so-called crisis of the liquid bombers and Al Qaeda may be the US/British response to the above. Is it premature? To follow.

A nice letter in todays Irish Indo.
"We are three Israelis touring Ireland, unable not to follow closely the news. We are watching with shock and horror how our own government is bombarding civilians in Lebanon, at the same time as we are concerned and worried for our families and friends back home in Israel.
Reading through your Letters To The Editor section make us wish to remind your readers that the current terrible and shameful war in Lebanon did not start with the Hezbollah's kidnap of the two Israeli soldiers and firing missiles into Israel.
People seem to forget the many Lebanese prisoners, among them some who were abducted as children, captivated by Israel during the '90s and who are still being held by Israel as hostages (As Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN, recently admitted in an interview to the BBC).
People seem to forget the continuous heavy bombardments of the besieged Gaza strip, causing a huge humanitarian crisis, which in itself is a direct continuation of almost 40 years of Israeli occupation. Our government has been choosing the route of violence. Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories are being killed and maimed. Neither this current war nor the previous one can be separated from the prolonged occupation and suppression of the Palestinians. This Israeli policy is subjecting us, Israeli citizens, together with the other peoples in the region, to endless wars.
As Israelis we must point out that the State of Israel is not the victim, it is the perpetrator! The key to security and peace in the Middle East is in Israel' hands: all it needs to do is act humanely and according to international law. "
ILANA BAKAL,
RON COHEN,
TIRZA WAISEL,
LONDON

Was studying Condolence's many photo-ops of the last month and two things came across

1. She is eminently civilised. (she played piano in Kuala Lumpar, while Lebanon Burnt- a few hours after shedding crocodile tears over Qana).

2. Her feet are bound. She walks in tiny little jolted steps. like a woman who has had her feet bound under her. She is completely unconscious of this. It's highly unusual, many women suffer problems with the shape of a very high heel, it reverses the arch- but Condi's feet are different, they are bent beneath her-she needs a good chiropractor.

Margaret Beckett is just an examplar of failed civilisation. There is not much else to say. Condi works from the will. Beckett is a failure, she speaks a language that is not hers and is a toe-rag in the Blair government. she shows us how to castrate ourselves through adapting our language and civilisation to the simplicity of money-lust and power. She, along with Cherie Blair are what females must attain to
and it makes me sick. They are truncated, lifted, botulised and empty, not just of their femininity
but their humanity.

The U.N resolution, btw, is not peace -nor anything near. It represents obscenity and the triumph of the western white civilisation over the rest of the world. There is an ugliness about the way they look and dress and the philosophy of material aspiration that is adavnced visually in these cultures
that is sickening.

*Omert annonuced the expansion of the ground offensive at 5.00pm (irish time) yesterday-*